He doesn't share

Cub is sick, so we write a blog together

This is a topic that has been on my mind for several weeks, now. Leading up to our family vacation in Montana, I knew this was going to present some awkward situations. Sometimes it makes me feel like my toddler is a jerk or a heathen, or I'm a bad mom. I don't know what to say when the issue arrises, but I can feel a sinking uneasiness almost every time I don't make my kids share.

At seven and f
our, my girls all tend to share organically. I don't force them to, but I have suggested it, "if you wanted to be nice." They can be reasoned with and they understand that they can always play with their own toys when company is gone. Plus, not one of them has ever been an only child. The twins were born first, then M, then cub. So, he has three older siblings to quibble with. Still, toddlers don't always like to share.

The cub is 18 months old and he is learning how to manipulate the world around him. He wants to flip light switches, push buttons, climb things and play music. When he discovers a new thing he can do, he wants to push the limits. Does it always have the same outcome? What if I do it a little differently? I watch him test things every day, including testing us with his demands.

He says "Why-uh" when he wants water and, "Nack" for a snack. After a messy meal he asks for a bath. He knows how to ask for milk, cookies, cheese, or a nap. He can ask to go outside. He can tell me when he has pooped, but usually only if I ask him first. If he doesn't know the word for something he wants, he points, then signs "please" and says "pee".

He wants to know how things work, whether it's a toy or a social puzzle. He want to experience everything and experiment. I don't want to limit his experience by demanding that he share something novel as soon as another toddler shows interest.

It's hard to explain this to every parent who says, "you should share." or "she said please." Even if your child has been very polite (and I sincerely congratulate you on teaching you toddler early manners), I still won't make my children share. I also won't make your child share with mine.

I understand and truly believe in the value of sharing, but not when it is forced. I do not want to teach my children that their desires are less important than those of their peers. No, you don't have to give up that toy just because someone else asked nicely. But I also don't want to teach them that they can have whatever they want just by asking. There are much more resourceful solutions to the problem of wanting something someone else has.

You could trade. You could just wait patiently. You could offer to play with the toy together. And, perhaps most importantly, you could just accept that maybe you won't get to play with it, and that's okay. You can find something else to play with.

I know, I'm going against the grain. Parenting is difficult. You make your choices based on what information is available to you. You make what you consider to be educated decisions and you hope for the best. If my kids were in public school and day care, they would probably be taught to share, and that would also be fine.

So far, I haven't had to worry much about people blatantly judging me when my son doesn't share. I just wanted to get this out there so people who have met/might meet my son will understand. As an added benefit, maybe some strangers will read this and understand that we are not so different. Please don't judge parents too harshly for their well-intentioned parenting decisions just because they didn't conform to yours.

Orientation and Immunizations

In my last post, I told you I'm going back to school and I took my placement exams. I got my results back and reaffirmed that I really need a refresher in the math department.

What I forgot to mention is my major will be biology. I decided on my major before I chose a college. I chose MSU Denver because they have a conservation biology and a wildlife biology focus for masters programs and I haven't decided on my masters plans just yet. I'm not even sure if I will pursue my masters at MSU. Papa has suggested we move to Australia for that portion, but that seems prohibitively expensive and complicated (but I could still homeschool the kids in Australia!).

Anyway, I had my orientation on Monday. I showed up nervous and kind of hungry because non-traditional student orientation is from 5pm to 8pm and I normally have dinner at 6. I did eat before I left, but a nervous, half-hour drive must have burned a lot of calories. Unfortunately, the food court and all of the various shops in the student union building (where orientation was held) were closed for lack of evening business traffic in the summer.

It's hard to learn much when you're hungry, but they did give me a folder of information to take home.

I got some holds removed from my account. I even signed up for American Sign Language 1, my first english class and Intro to Sociology. I'm still trying to determine what my fourth class will be for the first semester.

I spent yesterday and today calling seven different places in an attempt to track down my vaccination records. The last doctor's office I went to said my insurance provider would have them. My insurance provider said to call the doctor's office. I called my high school. They said to call the last college I attended. My college didn't have them because I was an online student. I called the health department where I got the shots in question and they said they only keep records until the person is 23. I'm 26. I called the last health department that gave me a shot and they only had that one shot on record, not the ones MSU wants proof of.

A couple of the people I talked to throughout that process suggested I ask about a titer test. It's a blood test to determine your immunity to certain things. MSU's health center said a titer test showing positive immunity would suffice for my records... but titer tests are uncomfortably expensive, especially when you consider that it could show levels below requirement (even though I've definitely had the shots) and then I'd have to have the vaccines anyway.

Ultimately, after much confusion and phone time and some help from Papa, I determined that I will have to get my MMR vaccines updated through the county health department and it will cost me less than $30 to do so. I have to have two shots before I start classes, and I have to get them at least one month apart. I better get started soon.

Going Back to School

I'm not really a risk taker. I once was, when I was small. My mom and sister could tell you all about the years when I spent my time flipping myself over the side of my crib or finding new ways to cross the monkey bars and climbing everything. Things happened and consequences started to scare me. Having kids was the final straw. When you've got other people to be accountable for, you hedge your bets... if you make bets at all.

Anyway, my acquired fear of failure made me hesitate (for years) to go to college. Right around the time I turned 21, I started classes for a visual communications degree at some expensive, online, nationally-accredited, not-quite-a-scam-but-close-enough college I won't tell you the name of. There was eventually a class action lawsuit against them.

I chose online school because I had the twins and I thought it would help me achieve my goals without having to leave my kids at home. I had no job and no idea what else to do for child care. What a cop-out, though. How do you take a physics lab class online?!

I dropped out after two of the three years that would have gotten me my bachelors degree. I couldn't stick to it once it really started to feel like a big, fake, waste of my money (even though my GPA was great and I was repeatedly on the president's list). Now, I'm 26 and I finally decided to go back.

It took a lot of support from Papa. The sad thing is, most of the support I needed was someone to tell me it was okay if I failed. How could I go back to school with all of the pressure of failure weighing down on me? What if I don't make a career out of my degree? My biggest stress was that I might drop out without a degree again and only waste everyone's time. Was it worth it to go back to college and leave my kids home if there was a chance I might not finish?

Papa said, "Yes". Education is valuable for education's sake. It's okay if I don't completely follow through. It's okay if I don't start a career. It's good for the kids to see me investing in myself even if I don't turn it into something lucrative. But he believes in me and he thinks I can and will.

Selfie on campus

Yesterday, I went to the campus for the first time and took my placement exams. The night before the test, I told Papa I was nervous and scared and, "should I have studied?" Of course I shouldn't have studied. The whole point of a placement exam is to figure out if I need a refresher in the core classes.

The morning of the test, I forgot to eat breakfast. I left my purse at home and had to come back when I noticed (after I got out of my neighborhood). I nearly ran out of gas on the way to the campus. I had to get off of the highway and fuel up at a truck stop with the worst traffic I've ever seen at a gas station. Then, I couldn't figure out how to get back on the highway, so I had to drive through the city on the surface roads.

When I got to the campus, I accidentally parked at the opposite corner of the campus from the testing office. I walked to the building and got lost inside... had to ask where the testing office was. I got to the testing office and the staff asked if I had made an appointment. No. I had not made an appointment. The website, the email, and the letters they had sent said I didn't need an appointment to take the placement exams. I even called and asked a few days in advance and the staff said I didn't need an appointment.

Guy says, "yeah, but it's finals week..." etc.
I say, "I just called a couple of days ago and was told I didn't need an appointment."
Guy says, "These people behind you have appointments and we're pretty full, aren't we?"
Other guy says, "No."

Long story short, I took my exams... the whole while wondering if I was going to make a scene when I passed out from hunger. It seemed inevitable and only a matter of when: either mid-exam, resulting in an embarrassing falling-out-of-chair scene, or as soon as I got out of the chair.

Then my phone was almost dead and I had no idea how to get home without my GPS. I got almost home on 7% battery power before it officially died. Good thing I know how to get home once I get close enough.

In conclusion: Success. Hilarious and ridiculous, messy (as usual) success.

*Note: I apologize to anyone who read this in the first 12 or so hours after it was posted. I tried to edit it with my 17-month-old son sitting next to me. You can imagine how that goes.

Ham and Veggie Chowder

I got this recipe from a recipe book my mom has called "slow cooker favorites". It's super easy, visually appealing, and delicious. It's also full of vegetables, so who can complain? I didn't want to add anything to mine (not even salt and pepper!) but salt, pepper, grated cheese, and crackers would be good options to make available when you serve this stuff.

Ham and Veggie Chowder

Makes 6 Servings

Total time 4 to 5 hours (on high) 7 to 9 hours (on low)
Time in the slow cooker 3.5 to 4.5 hours (on high) 6.5 to 8.5 hours (on low)

Prep time (probably not even) 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cans condensed cream of celery soup, undiluted
• 2 cups diced cooked ham (you can buy it already diced or dice up some leftovers)
• 1 10oz package frozen corn, thawed (You can also use strained and rinsed canned corn. I haven't tried fresh, but I imagine that would also work)
• 1 large baking potato, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 medium red bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves (I used thyme powder, and it turned out fine)
• 2 cups small broccoli florets (I used fairly large ones, I recommend you don't. The broccoli does not get soft enough to break apart with a spoon easily, so larger pieces are pretty inconvenient.)
• 1/2 cup milk

Instructions

DO NOT PUT THE MILK IN YET!
I had Papa helping me with this dinner. I was chopping potatoes and peppers while he was putting other things in the slow cookers (we used two and made a double recipe). He didn't read to the end of the instructions before he put the milk in. Do not put the milk in until 15 to 30 minutes before serving. I know it looks like an unreasonably dry pile of vegetables and you want to add some liquid. There's not a lot of liquid in this recipe, especially in the early stages. Your milk will probably curdle if you add it too soon. In fact, it definitely will if you try to cook it on high for 3 or 4 hours. 

1. Combine condensed soup, ham, corn, potato, bell pepper and thyme in your slow cooker. Mix well.
2. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours or high for 3 to 4 hours.
3. THEN stir in broccoli and milk.
4. Cover and cook on high for 15 to 30 minutes or until broccoli is warm and tender, but not falling apart. 

Papa was tired and not feeling well when he was helping me. When he realized he had made a mistake, he wasn't sure how to fix it. I wound up sending my sister to the closest grocery store to get some new cream of celery soup while we dumped the slow cooker contents into a sieve and used the shower-like setting on the sink tap to wash all of the liquids off of the solid ingredients. 

It turned out fine; delicious even.

Sleep For a Mom

For the last few days, my son has been congested, but only at night. During the day, it all seems to come streaming down his face and I've stopped believing I can keep up with it. At night, he wakes up crying. At first, I thought it was teething, because he's getting all four canines simultaneously. Then, after the first night of repeated wake up calls came the first day of incessant nose wiping.

The next night, I inclined one end of his mattress by stuffing a folded up blanket under it, plugged in his Vicks vaporizer under his crib, and gave him a precautionary dose of ibuprofen in hopes that the anti-inflammatory might ease the swelling of his mucous membranes and, if it was teething, that was covered.

We still lost sleep. After two nights of wrecked sleep, Papa took a sick day and stayed home and I noticed something:

Toddler sleep deprivation is different from baby sleep deprivation.

When the Cub was small, I hardly slept at all. I knew I had to be up every few hours to feed him, so I could never really relax enough to get truly restful sleep. During the day, I was... Okay I guess, but easily worn out and grumpy. I wasn't keeping up with all of my chores, but not exactly because I was tired. The Cub's perpetual needs kept me going and even helped me get out of bed in the morning because I knew he needed me, and no matter how many times he had me up through the night, he was still going to be up on time in the morning.

Now, if he wakes up more than one, brief time in the night, he is very likely to sleep in the next morning. What a relief for me! Even though I still have to get up to get breakfast ready for the girls, I can relax on the couch or even get back in bed for a bit before the toddler gets up. And you know once the toddler is up, there's no rest 'til nap time because if I stop watching, he's unrolling the toilet paper like a cat or sneaking out the back door his sisters didn't quite manage to latch.

When he was a baby, I felt like I was in constant survival mode through the whole night, every night, just trying to fall asleep at all and basically never reaching deep sleep. But when I had to get up to feed him, I was only slightly reluctant. Now, he almost never cries for anything at night and I've become comfortable enough to sleep soundly again. Even when he gets sick like this, he seems to only need me when I'm in the deepest sleep possible. His cry still wakes me, even when it doesn't wake Papa, but I stumble to his room, slamming my shoulder into the door frame (surprised that didn't wake Papa), and the part of my brain that is totally awake wants to face-palm and sees what my body is doing as either a deliberate defiance or a great audition for a zombie flick. That part of my brain is also intensely worried that my body might fail when it comes time to get the Cub out of his crib... Obviously I'm doing such a good job getting myself out of my bedroom already, right? But I always do fine.

Generally, by the time I get to his crib, I'm in much better control of my limbs, plus it turns out that mommy-mode is actually quite powerful.

Sleep deprivation is sleep deprivation. It gives me headaches and sore muscles and makes me grumpy and slow. It doesn't matter if it's chronic sleep deprivation or just a few nights, the following day suffers the consequences. Nights like last night (zombie flick audition night) are much harder to get through because they happen infrequently, so I'm relaxed enough to get to that deep sleep that's so hard to get out of. Still, I wouldn't trade it for the months of waking up every few hours in his early babyhood. I never even got to deep sleep back then.

For all the moms dealing with sleep deprivation: it gets easier. Your precious sleep cycle will come back. Just keep moving forward, one day at a time. 

Seven Years a Mom

I can't believe it was seven years ago already. On the day the twins were born, I was 35 weeks and 2 days pregnant. I hadn't seen their father since shortly after I found out I was pregnant, and my mom and step-dad were taking me to my appointments. 

I didn't want to go alone because my appointments were always exceptionally long and tiresome. Often, they were also emotional for one reason or another. For example, I had always been terrified of all needles until the pain of injections was put into perspective by the Rhogam shot I had to have at twenty weeks. To be fair, I'm sure that it can be given reasonably.

Anyway, I was at the hospital, in Denver, with my mom. It was frigid outside and snowy. It was February 16th, and I was in for a routine appointment. Because I was carrying twins, I was having routine appointments every week. I remember talking to a counselor about what I was planning to do after the twins were born. One of the babies had hiccups.

After we talked to the counselor, I went on about my usual appointment business. Blood pressure, a urine sample, and temperature were taken and I was hooked up to an NST machine. In my two pregnancies since then, I've not been subjected to this. 

NST stands for Non-Stress Test. In case you've never had one, they strap hard, plastic disks the size of the bottom of a beer stein to your belly; one for each baby and one extra to monitor contractions. If you're small and pregnant with twins, that covers a lot of belly. Then, you lay down like that, heavy with baby weighing down on your inferior vena cava, for at least half an hour while a machine prints a tape that makes no sense to you, and a doctor determines if the lines on the tape are acceptable. 

This process always took longer than 30 minutes for me because they couldn't manage to keep the monitor paddles on both babies for long enough. Babies move. If a nurse couldn't get it right, they'd send me to the labor and delivery unit to have someone sit with me with the plastic paddles on my belly for another 30 minutes. All the while, I thought this was something they did to all pregnant women. I only recently learned that only high risk pregnancies are subjected to such frustration. 

On the day the twins were born, I was sent to labor and delivery and I thought nothing of it. I still had a month to go, I had no recognizable contractions, the twins were moving as they should be, and I had been sent to labor and delivery for no real reason before. 

Then, some unlucky woman brought in a tray with various tools for starting an IV. I remember it very clearly. She brought it to my left side, between my bed and my lovely view out the bank of windows. It was one of those metal trays on a stand with wheels. I could see the swabs, a rubber tournicate, an IV needle and medical tape. 

I asked, "what's that for?"

She said, "just in case."

The details of what happened after that aren't so clear. I lost my mind and told the woman I wouldn't consent to whatever they were planning to do because I had no reason to believe anything needed to be done. I cried and panicked and ranted to my mom. How dare they?!

They sent my doctor in.

He explained that the NST had shown signs of fetal distress and he recommended a Caesarian to avoid any further trouble. 

Before that day, I had made plans for how I wanted my delivery to go. I knew how to pack a hospital bag. I wanted a natural, water birth. I was excited because the birthing suites had jacuzzi bath tubs. 

I wasn't prepared. I didn't really understand what I was walking into. I hadn't planned on seeing the twins that day. I didn't have a hospital bag, or my cell phone. I hadn't even bought car seats yet. 

I'm thankful my mom was there. She was my voice of reason, and convinced me that it was probably the best thing to do. I'm not sure I could have made that decision on my own. I was a weeping mess. 

Then, I saw the anesthesiologist, who was a nice woman with short hair and lovely bedside manner. I was so thankful for her presence and peace of mind in my panic. She sat by my side and explained how the spinal anesthetic would be administered and how I would feel. 

A nurse ran an IV in my arm and I was wheeled into an operating theater. It was bright white and sterile... And kind of terrifying. 

To receive a spinal you have to curl your back as though you're hugging a pillow with your whole body. That's quite a feat when you're 35 weeks pregnant with twins. It's enormously uncomfortable and difficult to achieve. Once you're in that position, they swab your back and give you a shot of local anesthetic. After checking for numbness you receive the spinal anesthetic. Then, they lay you down immediately because you're about to lose feeling from your diaphragm down.

That whole process went off without a hitch. But the feeling that followed was the strangest I had ever known. If you've ever had something fall on your diaphragm and "had the wind knocked out of you", you have some idea what this feels like. You're breathing but you don't feel like you're breathing. It's as though you're about to suffocate. Combine that with a creeping lack of feeling throughout your entire lower body and you get the picture.

Of course, I had already been crying previous to this, but the experience of the spinal was especially stressful still. It felt something like a panic attack. The thought did cross my mind that this was not how I wanted to welcome my children into the world. Thankfully, my anesthesiologist was incredible and very patient with my emotional upheaval.

There was a big fabric screen between my head and my belly. It was that strange surgical blue-green and hoisted by a metal frame with clips. I couldn't see anything but my mom was sitting by my shoulder. I wondered, aloud, whether she was going to look. 

She had been in a similar room with me once before, when I was getting stitches in my head after a car accident. I recalled her expression of discomfort with that situation when she told me she wasn't going to be looking. I think she may even have said something to the effect that she didn't need to see any more of my insides.

I don't remember what the incision felt like. I don't remember if I felt that it all. But the feeling of having babies pulled from my womb certainly trumped the weirdness of spinal anesthesia. Today, having experienced it a couple of times more, I realize it can be compared to removing a Band-Aid. Because of the anesthesia, there was no pain, but the pressure of having something pulled from my body felt much like pulling a Band-Aid from your skin but multiplied. It was actually almost nauseating.

I don't remember my daughters crying. I didn't see them until they were swaddled and brought to my side. Their wrinkly little faces were just... unreal. I hadn't been expecting to be a mom that day. Besides I wasn't the sort of woman who inherently loved babies. They were premature, tiny, and not particularly cute, and I honestly didn't fall in love with them immediately. 

They were taken to the NICU (neo-natal Intensive Care Unit) and I didn't see them for a while. When I got there, one was under a lamp for jaundice and the other was hooked up to a feeding tube, but both were in open bassinets, sleeping. Together, they weighed about as much as an average, normal-size baby. 

Over the course of the next few days, I received another Rhogam shot because my daughters' blood tested Rh positive, I had the worst gas pain I have ever experienced and what I thought would be the worst bathroom experience, which has since been put to shame by my son's delivery. C was spitting up basically all of her food, so the hospital staff tube fed her while I watched, which was upsetting. I wanted to sleep, but I couldn't. I had no idea what to do with two babies. 

My mom was there through the whole recovery period, unless she was out fetching food taking a break. Still, it was unnerving, not having any idea how to handle my own babies. I had never changed a diaper. And what should I do when they're both fussing? The four of us, two adults and two babies, are now stuck in this single hospital room together and only one of us has relevant experience... and it's not me!

I cried. I'm not sure how many separate times I cried. 

In the hospital, the staff encouraged me to feed them a special, high-calorie, jarred formula. These little girls needed to gain weight, and quick. I tried breastfeeding, but couldn't get them to latch, now that they had already been given the bottle in the NICU. I admit, I was also far too emotional to listen to the lactation consultants for one more friggin' minute. One said, "do this", then another said, "no, do that". I told them not to come back.

Some of my family members chipped in and bought a couple of simple car seats and a playpen. The hospital staff let us take home the clothes the girls were wearing. A friend of mine donated a bag full of her daughter's baby clothes. I went home with a hand pump and two, tiny babies who needed to be fed every couple of hours, refused to latch and could only use a bottle. 

I gave up breast feeding immediately. And, unfortunately, I felt worthless because of it. Don't ever let something like this make you feel worthless. Yes, I breastfed my other two children. Yes, it was gratifying and empowering. But formula feeding is not bad. I think it was just one more thing I didn't get to have go my way. I didn't have a water birth, or a natural birth at all. I didn't have my babies anywhere near when I expected to. I didn't get to pick car seats or clothes. I didn't have a partner there, I had my mom instead. I didn't get cloth diapers. I didn't get to breastfeed.

I did everything I could to keep it together through it all, but breastfeeding was the last straw and I began to hate myself.

Take heart. I don't feel that way anymore. I have two, still tiny, seven-year-old girls for whom I do the absolute best I can. I love them, though I can't quite say when that feeling took hold. I'm proud of them, and I'm proud of myself for mothering them, even when I couldn't give them what I felt was best, and even when I had no idea what I was doing... Or how we were going to get by.

I am thankful for the calm, quiet life we live now.

The Case of the Missing Porcelain

My cuddly little cub has officially entered the "prefers to walk, but is tragically unskilled" phase and has become a well-meaning but chaos-bent toddler. I, as his momma, have entered the days when I have to repeatedly remind myself that his curiosity and bold excitement are valuable characteristics even if he shows them by unpacking an entire Costco bag of wipes or reorganizing my pantry.

He often flees the scene before I can get a new diaper on him. He recently fell in his sister's bath, head-first, while I was watching. Last night, he and his unsuspecting Papa managed to do something fairly hilarious.

This is not an exact reconstruction of last night's events. These are merely the events as I recall them, retold in such a way as to make narrative sense to the reader.

The Case of the Missing Porcelain

"I went to the bathroom thinking one of the girls was in there, washing their hands or something because I could hear the water running." He said. But what he found was the Cub, who had, "turned the water on in the tub. But the tap handle was disassembled."

I went to the kids' bathroom to conduct my own quick search. I looked under the edge of the cabinets, behind the toilet, in the storage compartments of the step stools, and even fished in the bathtub drain until I determined that the ninety-degree bend in the pipe would have kept the porcelain handle from going out of view.

Papa said, "It could have gone down there."

"No. The bend is too sharp, and the handle is too long to turn down it. I'm more worried about... that." I said, as I looked toward the toilet.

Papa's eyes got wide with realization just before he admitted, "I flushed the toilet when I came in. Someone had used it and didn't flush."

So... without further investigation, I have to assume the porcelain segment of the bathtub tap handle is gone for good. Of course, it wouldn't be completely unprecedented for it to show up somewhere silly (In the case of the missing dog food bowl, it showed up in the kitchen cabinet).

It still works, it just looks ridiculous. Papa found the two metal pieces before he came to find me. Can you buy a replacement porcelain piece?